BTX (computers)

Encyclopedia : B : BT : BTX : BTX (computers)

BTX (for Balanced Technology Extended) is a form factor for PC motherboards, originally slated to be the replacement for the aging ATX motherboard form factor in late 2004 and early 2005. It has been designed to alleviate some of the issues that arose from using newer technologies (which often demand more power and create more heat) on motherboards compliant with the circa-1996 ATX specification. The ATX and BTX standards were both proposed by Intel. Intel's decision to refocus on low-power CPUs, after suffering scaling and thermal issues with the Pentium 4, has added some doubt to the future of the form factor, and it has not been widely accepted by the market as of mid 2006. The first company to really give BTX a push was Gateway Inc, it has been a success with Gateway's products and now due to this, Dell is making a move to it.

Contents

1 Enhancements
2 Compatibility
3 Criticisms
4 External links

4.1 Documentation
4.2 Media Coverage
4.3 Products

Enhancements

-->

Low-profile - with the push for ever-smaller systems, a redesigned backplane that shaves inches off height requirements is a benefit to system integrators and enterprises who use rack mounts or blade servers.
Thermal design - the BTX layout establishes a straighter path of airflow with fewer obstacles, resulting in better overall cooling capabilities. With CPUs and graphics cards being capable of consuming over 100W of power each, this was viewed as an essential improvement as computing technology develops beyond 2005.
Structural design - the greater need for heat sinks, capacitors, and other components dealing with electrical and thermal regulation has resulted in devices that can physically strain some motherboards. The BTX standard addresses this issue by specifying better locations for hardware mounting points.

Compatibility

Regular or full-sized BTX motherboards in a tower case will work fine with ATX power supplies, as neither the power connectors nor the direction of airflow from the power supply fan has been changed; however, this is about all that will be compatible.

Criticisms

Unlike ATX, BTX was met with an almost unanimously hostile response from motherboard manufacturers and was often lampooned by the computing media. Many saw it as an attempt to redesign the form factor only to cool a next generation of Intel multi-hundred watt CPUs. The aberrant motherboard orientation was also met with derision.

In December of 2005, ExtremeTech listed BTX as one of ten failed tech trends of the year.

External links

Documentation

[BTX Form Factor Info], a website that provides a central location for information regarding the BTX form factor developed by Intel.
[FormFactors.org], a website dedicated to maintaining data and tools regarding the implementation of various form factors. Note that formfactors.org is sponsored by Intel, and does not contain information about non-Intel form factors that are nevertheless quite popular, such as Mini-ITX.
[Detailed AnandTech discussion of the BTX design]
[Hardwareanalysis.com report about the pros and cons of the BTX proposal]
['Whatever happened to BTX?'] at [Game Tech Central]

Media Coverage

[Dan's Data] (a hardware review site) claims in late 2004 that, apart from "a new giant bolt-mount heat sink standard", BTX "doesn't have anything else to commend it" over existing industry standard motherboard form factors.
[Anandtech's coverage] of a 2004 trade show (wherein Intel was featuring BTX) includes coverage of some of the criticisms with which it was met.
[ExtremeTech]'s December 2005 Failed Trends article.

Products

Some BTX cases on the market:

[AOpen B300]
[Chenbro PC307]
[Cooler Master CM Media B260]
Coolermaster [Centurion] [Stacker] (some Stacker variants also support ATX)
[Evercase ECE1341]

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.